THIRD FLOOR
The third floor, which is closed to visitors, is divided into two sections; one contains five more guestrooms, and the other the servants’ quarters. The third floor guestrooms are as elaborate as any on the second floor and consist of the Pink Room, with white painted furniture—often used by Frederick Vanderbilt in the winter; the Little Mauve Room, furnished with oak furniture; the Empire Room, with French Empire period furniture and satin-covered walls to match the covering on the furniture and bed; and the White Room, with white furniture, drapes, and upholstery.
Female employees of the mansion were quartered in the servants’ rooms on the third floor. In addition to the housekeeper’s suite of two rooms, there were single rooms for seven maids, two cooks, and a kitchen girl, and a room for sewing and pressing. The maids’ rooms are, of course, simpler in decoration and furnishings than the guestrooms.
When the nine guestrooms in the mansion could not accommodate everyone present, the pavilion was used as a guesthouse.